I Give Trees

Give the gift of a food forest in Brazil’s Mata Atlântica. We’ll be planting 300 native species trees in each plot, with an emphasis on tropical staple tree crops. These will include Coconut, Limes, Jackfruit, Avocado, Mango, Papaya, Pitanga, Aurocaria, Fruita de Conde, Jaibuticaba, Banana, Passionflower, Pineapple and many others!

Our plantings include the cost of organic soil amendments and 2 years of maintenance after plantings.

The iGiveTrees campaign has been supported by global citizens spanning 5 continents since 2009. We are responsible for 6,000 trees being planted at a size, and in a manner, that is conducive to their growth, rather than just being statistics that die off within months due to lack of care. We have respected the dignity, wisdom and value of every person involved in the process, from seed harvesters, to nurserymen, to organizational partners, to subsistence farmers.

In 2016, iGiveTrees was recognized as one of “100 Projects for the Climate” by the French Ministry of the Environment, and was invited to participate in the climate change conference, COP22. Since then we have been scaling our future reach with support from the French organization, OpenTeam.

In 2017, when the research of Project Drawdown was released, I discovered that we were already engaged with 3 of the Top 15 solutions to global warming.

To increase our capacity to plant native species tropical staple tree crops in 2018, we are collaborating with a Brazilian agroforestry training center to help a new generation of environmental entrepreneurs learn how to effectively plant urban food forests in the city of São Paulo.

Your support allows us to continue planting and maintaining native species trees organically, while supporting local communities. The trees we gift back to the Earth are maintained by local people for two years, to insure their survival in the field.

My name is Alana Lea, creator of the iGiveTrees project. Through trial and error, over the last eight years, we‘ve discovered a way to restore real hope. With your funding partership, I’ve been able to give trees to small Brazilian communities through their local NGOs. In turn, they are improving the soil, replanting an endangered rainforest to restore biodiversity, produce more oxygen, rebalance water systems, and sink more carbon for the benefit of the whole planet.

These days, I’m confident that we’ve made a positive impact by directly supporting small local, organic, rural organizations,instead of the Big International NGOs (BINGOs) that accept funding from agrochemical companies, then teach people to use toxic chemicals to keep their donors happy. These BINGOs also fund environmental education, while requiring the use of herbicides when their projects replant the forest. Nature’s balance is once again being destroyed, by those methods.

Small local NGOs are in the ideal position to distribute saplings to farmers who want to revitalize land and water, without being obligated to apply herbicides to the new forests, by benefactors who accept funding from multinational agrochemical companies.

Since 2009 the iGiveTrees campaign has crowdfunded 6,000 trees that were given to the people of the Atlantic Rainforest just by sharing our story on a few blogs and videos. That was R&D – research and development – to discover what works. And even more important, what doesn’t work. Informed by experience, we’re now motivated to do hundreds of times more with new field partners who have proven commitment to the process, while needing help to achieve their planting goals.

Most of the trees we’ve given back to the Atlantic Forest since 2010 have been planted in the Vale do Paraiba, São Paulo state. Have a look at this historic photo to see the area, as it appeared in the 1882. We see slaves working in a coffee plantation. Descendants of some of these people are now subsistence farm families, receiving trees to heal the spirit of both people and the land, while renewing their water sources.

Here’s how the project began…

When I learned that 93% of the Brazilian rainforest where I was born had disappeared in my lifetime, I was shocked into action. So I found people who knew more about the land than I did, and together we started a reforestation project.

Over several years, I teamed up with a network of sustainable seed harvesters, small NGOs and subsistence farm families who now live on barren land that was once a lush rainforest. They want to replant their land, without adding toxic chemicals to their groundwater, as they’re being taught to do by certain entities.

In some of the areas we’ve helped plant in the past years, residents are challenged by the eucalyptus plantations (for paper pulp) that work with agrochemical companies, and their green gloved NGO partners who approve of planting genetically engineered trees, sprayed with toxic herbicides.

Once abundant water sources were sucked dry by thirsty, fast-growing, eucalyptus trees, contributing to epic droughts, while pollinators die, and remaining water supplies are contaminated by glyphosate, now recognized as a carcinogen by the World Health Organization.

By contrast, when we give rural families a gift of organically grown, native species trees, they renew the life of the rainforest to benefit us all.

Together, we are renewing the planet’s precious natural resources for our kids.

And, we’re proud of our results! Most tree planting projects are planting seedlings in fields then walking away, hoping they’ll grow without further care. Unfortunately, quite often the baby trees die from lack of water, being overgrown by grasses or trampling within months, while the planting project claims BIG NUMBERS of the trees they planted. Not us.

Have a look at just a few pictures of two year growth reports for trees planted through our project in 2011. OUR TREES GROW!!!

Our reforestation project supports global cooling, the return of wildlife and Nature’s biodiversity. And our hundreds of species of tropical trees have a better chance of growing to maturity, faster, able to sink more carbon than trees planted in the backyards of the Northern Hemisphere OR Genetically Modified trees.

Your tax-deductible “crowdfunding” donations here make the purchase and distribution of these trees possible, at no cost to the recipients, through social enterprise and non-profit partnerships. We work directly with small, local NGO partners in the community who are focused on teaching organic agroforestry methods in targeted areas of need.

Our new goal is to start an urban landscaping service in the city of São Paulo, planting small food forests, using the proven models of Afforestt, to help sustain tree donations to subsistence farm families.

Native species trees replanted in Brazil benefit the entire planet.

Welcome to the iGiveTrees global community!

ECOfloresta is the US non-profit funding partner of the iGiveTrees project in Brazil.

Our mission is to create educational events to support the planting and maintenance of tropical trees, and the organic enrichment of their soil, to drawdown CO2.

Our goal is to train new environmental entrepreneurs in methods that will restore their rainforests, while feeding their communities.

Our core values are commitments to positive, ethical, organic and regenerative practices to preserve and restore the integrity of native species plants, trees, soils and pollinators in Brazil.